LAS VEGAS – I was in Las Vegas, looking for a little XXX action, so I prowled the alley, my mind in the gutter.

No, not the kind of XXX you'll see advertised on top of Vegas taxicabs and handouts on The Strip.

My kind of XXX was at the South Point bowling center. In the 10th frame of an otherwise mediocre bowling game I had rolled a strike, then another. Now I took aim, hoping for another true roll and not the ignominy of a ball sent fluttering into the gutter.

I shuffled my white, red and black rented bowling shoes across the polished hardwood and let fly a 14-pound blue sphere toward a formation of 10 white pins. The spinning orb skipped and rolled, on a beeline for the headpin. At the last second, it slid to the left and struck hard between the 1 and 2 pin, sending the whole set crashing end over end.

I'd rolled a wrong-side strike – a “Brooklyn” – for my third strike in the 10th frame, a turkey.

It was my best showing in three days rolling across Las Vegas, taking in one of the latest quirks in the gaming mecca's constant attempt to find a new niche to lure gamblers. Along with high-roller suites, $250-a-round golf courses and “bar wars” that have new clubs opening and closing seemingly every month, an old draw – bowling – has taken on a new gloss of lux.

Giving new meaning to the term “high roller,” the most expensive bowling alley in the world opened in the Las Vegas suburb of Summerlin. The new star is the $31 million, 72-lane Red Rock Lanes.

It's a major turnaround for a city that just a few years ago closed down the largest bowling alley in the world at the 106-lane Castaways (formerly the Showboat). Red Rock has an arcade, deli and lounge, shuffleboard, pool tables, lots of TVs and – surprise, surprise – video poker machines.